While I spoke, breathless and hurrying, he took the letter and, holding it out in his left hand, watched me attentively. When I announced Kraft’s suicide to him, I peered into his face with particular attention to see the effect. And what?—the news didn’t make the slightest impression on him; he didn’t even raise his eyebrows! On the contrary, seeing that I had stopped, he pulled out his lorgnette, which never left him and hung on a black ribbon, brought the letter over to a candle, and, after glancing at the signature, began to study it closely. I can’t express how I was even offended by this arrogant unfeelingness. He must have known Kraft very well; besides, it was in any case such extraordinary news! Finally, I naturally wanted it to produce an effect. Having waited for half a minute, and knowing that the letter was long, I turned and went out. My suitcase had long been ready, I only had to pack several things into a bundle. I thought of my mother and that I had not gone over to her. Ten minutes later, when I was quite ready and wanted to go for a cab, my sister came into my room.
“Here, mama sends you your sixty roubles and again asks you to forgive her for having told Andrei Petrovich about it, and there’s another twenty roubles. You gave her fifty roubles yesterday for your keep; mother says it’s simply impossible to take more than thirty from you, because she hadn’t spent fifty on you, so she’s sending you twenty roubles in change.”
“Well, thanks, if only she’s telling the truth. Good-bye, sister, I’m going away!”
“Where to now?”
“To an inn for the time being, only so as not to spend the night in this house. Tell mama that I love her.”
“She knows that. She knows that you also love Andrei Petrovich. You ought to be ashamed to have brought that unfortunate girl!”
“I swear to you, it wasn’t me; I met her by the gate.”
“No, you brought her.”
“I assure you . . .”
“Think, ask yourself, and you’ll see that you, too, were the reason.”
“I was only very glad that Versilov was disgraced. Imagine, he has a nursing baby by Lydia Akhmakov . . . however, why am I telling you . . .”
“He has? A nursing baby? But it’s not his baby! Where did you hear such a lie?”
“Well, as if you’d know.”
“Who else should know? It was I who took care of this baby in Luga. Listen, brother: I saw long ago that you know nothing about anything, and yet you insult Andrei Petrovich, well, and mama, too.”
“If he’s right, then I’ll be wrong, that’s all, and I don’t love you any less. Why did you blush so, sister? And still more now! Well, all right, but even so I’ll challenge that princeling to a duel for Versilov’s slap in Ems. The more so if Versilov was in the right with Miss Akhmakov.”
“Brother, come to your senses, really!”
“Since the court has now closed the case . . . Well, and now you’ve turned pale.”
“But the prince won’t fight a duel with you,” Liza smiled a pale smile through her fright.
“Then I’ll disgrace him publicly. What’s wrong, Liza?”
She became so pale that she couldn’t stand on her feet and lowered herself onto the sofa.
“Liza!” mother called from downstairs.
She put herself to rights and stood up; she was smiling tenderly at me.
“Brother, leave these trifles, or wait for a while, till you learn much more: you know so terribly little.”
“I’ll remember, Liza, that you turned pale when you learned I’d be going to a duel!”
“Yes, yes, remember that, too!” she smiled once more in farewell and went downstairs.
I called a cab and, with the driver’s help, carried my things out of the apartment. None of my family opposed me or stopped me. I did not go to say good-bye to my mother, so as not to meet Versilov. When I was already sitting in the cab, a thought suddenly flashed in me.
“To the Fontanka, the Semyonovsky Bridge,” I ordered suddenly, and went to Vasin’s again.
II
